Saturday, April 5, 2008

Caste is a central fault line of modern India. Indian Social Science has a tendency to study it as a displacement of more fundamental identities like class or ethnicity, despite the fact that the public spaces of modern India are inflected by violence against Dalits and subordinated castes and its domestic spaces structured by strict discrimination against caste miscegenation. Portrayal of the conflicts of caste has rarely been part of the commercial mainstream cinema in India. Pitching my argument in this context I’d like to discuss about caste as dealt with in Indian cinema. Taking off from a more recent and popular cinema, Swades is a film which directly addresses the Dalit problematics.The main story revolves around the protagonist, Mohan Bhargav, played by Shah Rukh Khan, a scientist in NASA. Mohan decides to come back to India in search of Kaveriamma, his namesake mother. The director plays upon the contrast that the location causes: from a highly clinical environment of the NASA research centre, to the Indian capital, to one of the remotest of villages in India. Within the filmic structure the director plays subtly with the obvious. We may fail to register first time, this social condition that we are dealing with, and which, though seems to be “far away” is hardly a few kilometers from the modern spaces we are moving in. The film tries to hit home the fact that modern India is not very far away from the “reality”, which it tries to hide behind the garb of “liberal thinking” and outlook. As we arrive in the village, we become aware of the lack of electricity, telephone connection, a proper school, etc., all of which comes as a stark contrast to the air conditioned caravan, which the protagonist drives, the fancy watch, the electronic foot massager, the expensive brand of cigarette.The first encounter with the issues of caste and caste-based oppression takes place when we hear the village Head frowning down upon Mohan for having had food cooked from a lower caste. The urban individual is distanced from how the government legislation works at the grassroot level. He is fascinated to watch a Panchayat in progress, behaving like an outsider, only highlighting the fact how distanced an urban individual is from the grassroots, which forms the bulk of the country’s population. The film raises the question of how the governmental policies are being implemented and whether they are reaching all and reaping the benefits for which they were formulated. At the same time it comments on the role of every citizen in nation building, doing away with their differences and reservations. It talks of education and the increasing trend of dropouts which the government is struggling to cope with.While the film tried to pin down the lacunae of the government to meet these teething problems that are standing in the way of development, it also emphasizes the need for personal awareness of each individual. Education is caught in a thousand year old orthodoxy that leads to children not getting proper education so that they can aim for a better life.The character of Birsa is an archetype of the caste oppressed populace of modern India. For him when the village is a forbidden territory, how ca he even think of sending his children to school there. Another future crushed under the foot of evil custom. The rampant practice of child-marriage is also an issue that the film has tried to capture by focusing on this one family.The scene where the entire village is assembled to watch a popular film is another instance of the practice of discrimination. The Dalits and the higher castes sit on either side of the makeshift screen, the Dalits watching the entire movie in the opposite direction. The narration brings home the fact that we as a nation need to unite, doing away with our differences. The director brings this notion together when they show how if the entire village could pool their energies, they can make a huge difference to the life. The film, commercial as it is, plays within the rules of it but makes a strong statement. It makes the point explicit through the use of the visual media as well as the presence of a strong star cast. Swades is one of the few instances when Indian commercial cinema dares to take a bold stance against a wide social condition that has been in existence for over a millennium. However, Indian cinema can boast of a number of such films that deals with this issue.Mathamma is a documentary capturing a peculiar but exploitative practice of the Arundhati community in Tamil Nadu. It is about the tradition of offering female children to their deity Mathamma, similar to the practice of offering cattle. Then the offered female child becomes a property of the temple and the village. And she is called the Mathamma thereafter. As she becomes a God's consort, the girl is forbidden from marrying anyone else. But she can live with any person whom they wish to, as Devadasis do. Men exploit them sexually and then desert them. The documentary tries to find out the root causes for the tradition being alive today.In Arohan we witness the continuing struggle, symbolic of the endless battle of the underprivileged and the landless, for justice. Parai reveals the status of Dalit population in India with the South Indian village Siruthondamadevi as a classic example. "An injury to one is an injury to all" (Martin Luther King) is the baseline of the film. Siruthondamadevi, a village in Cuddalore, Tamilnadu, continues to live with the "official" lie that atrocities against minorities are a thing of past. Here 600 odd Dalits are under assault everyday by 6000 strong Oppressor caste. Untouchability, sexual harassment, rape, assault, exploitation of labor against the SC population are shockingly prevalent in this village. Almost 90% of the women are subject to sexual violence with their men helplessly acknowledging the oppressions. The documentary leaves the question on the constitutional concept of "Justice to All". After 56 years of self rule and independence, a major section of the Indian society still lives oppressed in the name of caste.Break the Shackles challenges the new economic policies posed before Dalits in India. The film focuses on how the three-track policy of globalization, privatization and liberalization, without the interest of social justice in a highly unequal social structure of country like India, becomes more discriminative to the Dalits.Similarly, Bimal Roy’s Achyut Kanya and Sujata sought to alert public opinion about the ill effects of caste distinctions. Satyajit Ray’s Sadgati is the story of Dukhi,an out-caste, who approaches the village Brahmin requesting him to set an auspicious date for his daughter's upcoming wedding. The Brahmin promises to perform the task in exchange of Dukhi slaving over household chores in return. Already ailing and weak due to a recent fever, Dukhi agrees and begins with cleaning the Brahman's house and stable. Working in scorching sun, hungry and malnourished, the he dies. The corpse lies close to the road used by the Brahmins to go to the village well. The untouchables shun it for fear of police investigation. What can be done with the corpse of an untouchable that no one will touch? Late in the evening, when no one looking, Brahmin ties a noose around its ankle, slides it out of the city limits and sprinkles holy water on the spot on the road to cleanse it of the untouchable’s touch.Thus, as Saikat Bhattacharya (director) aptly says, “I believe that cinema and cinema alone can bring about the desired emancipation of the masses by awakening them to the maladies of our society.”

8 comments:

But pappu can talk sala
said...

The Swadesh-kind of addressing the issue of caste is not rare. This kind of approaches address "caste" as certain sets of (discriminatory) practices, mostly prevalent in villages, which the middle/upper class, urban educated "protaganists" are not aware of, or refuse to address. Noteably, the protaganist appear as a modern individual who has surpassed his caste identity. Looking at the way Swadesh was marketed, it seems the ideal audience it expected was the same urban educated high class too. So the producers of the film takes up a two-fold pedagogical mission.

1. It produces an elitist image of the villagers caught in the pre-modern caste relationships. The protagonist is given the job to enlighten the whole villagers and politicise the complying Dalits - to come out of the discriminatory practices. Very similar to a nationalistic project.

2. It also "opens up" the eyes of the ideal audience it assumes (high class educated urban) to the fact that caste exists in most villages which needs urgent attention. Read in the context of the discourses about the need to make India a superpower, the intention becomes clear.

To some extend, the documentary "India Untouched" also takes up such a position. It opens with the visuals of anti-reservationists, in which "Youth for Equality" students claim that caste no longer exists. Then it cuts to villages to show that caste discrimination is still "there" in India.

Casteism is like somebody calling you DUMB when you both know that you are NOT dumb.

How can you PREVENT him from calling you dumb?

I think he will FEAR to call you dumb, if you carry a Licensed Pistol.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms

And let us PURCHASE a separate nation viz Israel is for world wide Jews to live with Dignity.

"Early Zionists were so desperate for a refuge at one point that they actually considered a proposal to create a Jewish homeland in Uganda. Alaska and Siberia were also discussed"http://www.jewfaq.org/israel.htm

Responses

Dear friends,Me and some of my friends would like to know a certain thing : who was the high caste bengali student who didnt want a Dalit for a room mate.As far as we think, when someone chooses their room mate, what they see is if they can get along well with each other. Did anyone ask someone his/her caste while doing so?A reply will be appreciated.Thank you, Shukti

From the Editor:As far as we think, when someone chooses their room mate, what they see is if they can get along well with each other. Did anyone ask someone his/her caste while doing so?A reply: As far as the editors are concerned, we sincerely do not know of any such case where a bengali upper caste student refusing to share rooms with a Bengali Dalit student 'citing' (if one would really cite it) the particularity of caste differences. but that is definitely not a claim made in the survey report. let us take a look at was being claimed in the report:We share rooms with people whom we are comfortable with. That is definitely true. *But a survey of shared rooms in the 3 hostels indicates that in over 70% of the shared rooms, the roommates are of the same caste.* Though choice of roommate may be made on the basis of linguistic or religious or course wise uniformity, it remains a question whether a Bengali Higher caste student (to take one example) would share a room with another Bengali Dalit student. Cultural differences are significant in such choices but these differences might just preclude caste differences too.the example is clearly a hypothetical situation drawn up to explicate the point that among people who are obviously sharing rooms with people from the same linguistic community, there is a peculiarity of caste uniformity observed. again as we choose roommates with whom we are comfortable with or as shukti put it, we "get along well with", the 'comfort' or 'getting along well with' is definitely a quotient of our situated and historical realities. that would be why a Bengali student necessarily shares rooms with a Bengali student or majority of Arabic participants share rooms with each other. so much as we continue denying it presently, (and this is exactly what we were planning to counter when we claimed to attack caste neutrality in the journal) the claim made in the survey report was specifically addressed to the fact that the getting along well with is not as innocent as it seems. this yet again does not indicate a proliferation of caste considerations at the level of primary intentionality in choosing roommates. that was clearly not the point made and this does not require explication, it was more than obvious from the language. but the fact that our 'traditional' practices seem to be repeated even in our 'modern' setups requires serious analysis and thought if we are really to track caste or any other inequality in its real sites and contexts which seem to have a certain capacity of reiterability as is clear from our present conditions-there is no Dalit professor or 40%-50% of group D employees are Dalits.We ask the rest of the class if they really can think of any 'concrete' reason as to why such a huge majority of shared rooms in the university have people from the same caste?if the unconscious cannot be brought to test, criticism can hardly proceed after a point. that in itself is a difficult task. perhaps a few people we have read might help us to deal with this. We hope this is a satisfactory reply. we can off-course take the qustion to the next class and bring out the 'uglier' dimesions. we, the editors would be more than happy to respond and it also bears upon us to do so.Thanks, GeetanjaliRia JimmyRitamAsmita.

Thank you for the reply.If there is proper study to back up the statement, it is fine. I was just curious because many of the people I know here have roommates who are not from the same caste, or same linguistic or cultural community, and sometimes not from the same religion. But since the situation is hypothetical, I would like to state that it becomes a bit complicated for us to understand the statement without an explaination.Caste consciousness may be importatnt in some cases, but I think what really matters is a common course or a common language, or geographical proximity. Some of the people I know come from the same linguistic community yet have a huge difference in lifestyle and opinions. An M.A. english student will naturally look for an M.A. participant as a roommate. As for the case of Arabic, I think since most of them come from one particular religion, their roommates obviously will be Muslims.I guess what matters is the friends circle. Probably that is why not all people who belong to the same community hang out together.I understand that the aim of the survey was to say that "choosing a roommate is not an innocent phenomenon." But in order to genralize a hypothetical situation, I think other perspectives should also be considered. It is also important taht facts should be made available(cite specific examples, who stays with whom and what are their castes.)I think the survey/study should be made available to end such confusions. If we can have a look at it, it will help us to clarify. It is not a request from me but from many of my friends who find it difficult to agree with the claims. With specific examples, the claims can be justified.Thanks,Shukti